Song of the Day: Your Youth – Thick Gold (Bodied)

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Morning Show with John Richards, is “Thick Gold (Bodied)” by Your Youth from the 2012 EP Battery on Old Flame Records.

A self-described “loud alternative band that doesn’t totally exist”, Your Youth combines all of 1994’s (the last year the word “alternative” meant anything) trademark sounds – lo-fi filters, anthemic slacker vocals, subtle pop melodies – and throws them into a garage-rock blender. The duo have a pair of EPs containing their messy and melodic guitar rock, and for every self-aware, angst-ridden lyric, they’ve got a guitar or vocal hook that’s twice as appealing. As jubilant as it is nostalgic, “Thick Gold (Bodied)” is an appropriate soundtrack to a late night party and watching the sun rise during the morning after. Built around a tumbling section and an arsenal of “yeah”s, the song picks up intensity when the band stomps on their distortion pedals, and when your forte is Pixes-style verse-chorus-verse, that’s a very good strategy.

Currently, Your Youth’s only booked show is on March 8th at XPO 929 in Brooklyn, but if they make it out west, you’ll read about it on their Bandcamp and Facebook. Watch the 2010 video for the band’s track “Diamond”, directed by Jay Buim below.